


Rip Tide

by Asellas



Series: Saecula Saeculorum [5]
Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mental Anguish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 02:42:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16399850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asellas/pseuds/Asellas
Summary: Scrying into the depths of the aether is best left to those trained in the art, as there can be dire consequences for the untrained.(Follows after Flood and Flame)





	Rip Tide

**Author's Note:**

> Right, uh, apologies for making Rain my punching bag. I love him, I really do, but then I go and write this and, uh, yep.

It’s just as he remembers it, from all those years ago. The texture is rough, the lines carved out with a heavy hand and the stone left unpolished. It feels small though; it easily fits in the circle of his legs, unlike how it seemed to overfill Lux’s lap when they perched it between their knees.

Rain glances up at the closed bedroom door, a thread of worry worming its way into his gut. Blaze had left for a meeting with the clergy, pressing a kiss to Rain’s forehead and promising to be back before dinner. And odd feeling had been stirring in his gut since Blaze had brought the scrying mirror back to him, growing every time he looked at the carven stone bowl. It was as if it whispered to him, silently enticing him to use the mirror and look into the depths of time like Lux would, scouring the aether for glimpses of what may be. Now was his chance to try, to sate the curiosity that coiled and chirped in his mind.

He remembers the ritual Lux had shown him; the glyphs to sketch, the words of power to speak, how and when to touch which carved symbols on the mirror before pouring in the water. He’s mildly surprised at how easily it comes back to him, following the motions as if in some kind of trance till the water shimmers up at him, glimmering with colors that remind him of his dead friend’s eyes. He leans forward, hunching over the mirror and speaks the final words, eyes going wide as the bottom of the mirror dissolves and images bloom in the water.

He sees everything, life and death, love and strife. His breath catches in his throat as millions of timelines branch and explode, an infinite amount of realities where anything becomes possible. He watches the world crumble to dust, the heavens fall in flame, the ends of everything as the beginnings of another. It’s all a searing cascade of imagery, of untold numbers of possibilities, all screaming and tearing at his mind as he futilely tries to comprehend even the smallest thing. It sucks him in, drowning him in a vast sea of causality, bombarding his self with shrieking cries to be heard, seen, understood. The voices are a cacophony of noise, tearing at him like hooked claws till his soul is beaten and bloody, torn to shreds in the searing vortex of the aether.

Something eventually snaps, his mind breaking, and screams.

He thinks.

\--

Blaze is listening intently to Sister Imperator when he feels the first twinge, a small drop in his gut that made him narrow his eyes. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, and so ignores it and continues to concentrate on the Sister’s words.

 The next thing he knows, his heart is hammering in his chest and he finds he’s standing, arms braced on the heavy wooden desktop he was sitting at. He’s panting and he mentally reaches for the mate bond that sits right behind his heart, desperate to know that Rain is alright. Except—

He’s. Not. _There_.

He’s oblivious to the shouts and cries behind him as he turns and sprints from the room, slamming through the heavy wooden doors as if they weighed nothing, strength and speed fueled by unbridled panic. He barrels down the hallways, tossing any unfortunate brothers and sisters out of his path with harsh sweeps of his arms, snarling at any who attempt to grab at him or slow his progress. He practically kicks down the door to the apartment the band ghouls all shared, startling Earth and Ember who were playing a video game in the common room. He finds his own room empty then heads for Rain’s bedroom; though the water ghoul had practically moved in with him he still occasionally retreated to his own room. He finds the door locked and snarls, rearing back and kicking at it with enough force to break the mechanism and splinter the wood as it slams against the inside wall.

Blaze’s heart clenches hard in his chest as he finds Rain on the floor curled up around the scrying mirror, unmoving as blood drips from his nose. He can’t seem to breathe as he drops to his knees next to the water ghoul, reaching out to shake his shoulders gently.

“Rain? Rain, wake up, please wake up. Rain,” he calls, voice breaking when the lanky ghoul doesn’t respond. Blaze presses his fingers to Rain’s neck, searching for his pulse but finding him to be utterly still, the flesh cold and clammy under his hand. A choked off sound comes from his throat as he pulls the limp body into his arms, curling around him protectively and keening as he buries his face in Rain’s hair.

When hands grip at him, attempting to pull him away from his mate he bares his fangs and snarls, his fire leaping at the chance to lash out and burn everything to cinders as his heart breaks to pieces. He can hear voices all around him, soothing and concerned, pleading and worried. He can’t see who the voices belong to through the shimmer of tears in his eyes, only growls threatening at them as he curls tighter around Rain’s body.

 _They want to take him, he’s yours don’t let them take him!_ His mind screeches at him, and he obeys, clinging even tighter to Rain as the hands reach out to grasp at them both. Blaze throws his head back and roars, a deep, animalistic sound that makes them all flinch away with the exception of one. A hand slaps onto his face, fingers covering his eyes and palm over his forehead before his vision explodes in a riot of purple and black, drowning everything out with electric tendrils that screech and claw at his mind till everything fades and goes black.

\--

Rain blinks his eyes, staring at the white ceiling for some time before he notices that he’s actually awake. His mind feels like an open wound, raw and throbbing to the beating of his pulse, a sharp shrill beep in his ears. Breathing in, his lungs feel quite the same, tight and burning as if he’d been inhaling something extremely hot and acidic.

“Rain? Oh thank Lucifer, you’re awake,” a tired voice says, and somehow Rain is able to turn his head to the side the voice came from. His vision swims dizzyingly and the beeping noise speeds up.

“Ugh,” he moans, blinking till the large dark figure leaning over him comes into focus.

“Hey,” Aether beams down at him, dark smudges under his eyes and looking years older than Rain last remembers. “Easy now, just rest, take it slow. Everything’s alright, you’re going to be fine,” the big ghoul soothes, giving him a tired smile before settling back into the chair at his bedside. Rain finds that he’s dead tired and goes limp against the pillows, eyes falling shut and drifting off almost immediately.

When he wakes the next time the beeping is still there, though his head seems to feel a bit better. He’s not sure how much time has passed, though Aether is still in the seat next to the bed, slumped in on himself as he snores quietly. Something pulls at his wrist and he looks down, finding a set of IV lines taped to his right hand, leaving him to wonder just what has happened to him. His memory is fuzzy and jumbled, a series of nonsensical images and feelings that he’s no clue where, when, or what they belong to.

“Blaze?” His voice is soft in the quiet of the room, accented by the beeping that he finds is from a heart monitor clipped to one of his fingers. He can feel his mate deep down in his chest, but it’s quiet, subdued. Apprehension prickles down his veins like ice, and he worries something bad might have happened to the old fire ghoul.

“Yeah, something bad _did_ happen,” a harsh voice answers, catching Rain off guard; he hadn’t noticed that he’d spoken the thoughts aloud. A bulky ghoul is leaning in the doorway, mask held in one hand as he runs a hand through oily gray hair.

“Quinn,” Aether reprimands quietly as he wakes, yawning and stretching his arms over his head.

“Where’s Blaze, is he… is he ok,” Rain asks, shrinking back from the ill-tempered ghoul who strides into the room to give Rain an annoyed look.

“He’s heavily sedated and chained,” Quinn grunts, his gleaming purple and gold eyes seemingly able to pick Rain apart. Rain’s heart drops at the information, a quiet whimper coming from his throat.

“Rain, you were dead,” Aether informs him with a reserved, hushed tone. “For almost an hour. Not breathing, no pulse. We barely managed to get you back.”

Rain stares at Aether, mouth agape as he takes that in. “How… what…” he stammers and he feels himself begin to shake slightly. His memory is full of holes, wide, empty spots where he knows something should be but his mind has blanked it out. The harder he tries to remember the more he shakes, pulse thudding in his temples. Aether shushes him softly and smooths his hair back with a gentle hand.

“Hey, it’s alright, calm down,” he soothes, though Quinn gives an annoyed snort.

“Do you know what happened when Blaze’s first mate died,” the older quintessence ghoul asks in a quiet voice laced with venom and Rain flinches back from the tone, shrinking into himself as he shakes his head.

“Quinn,” Aether warns him again, though the other ghoul ignores him.

“Have you ever heard of Mount Tambora? Its eruption in 1815 was one of the worst in recorded history, with so much ash in the sky that the year after has been referred to ‘the year without summer’. And take a good guess at what caused it,” the bulky ghoul practically spits, eyes bright as his blood is up.

“You’re only making him worse Quinn, you need to calm—” Aether snaps, though even he shrinks back when Quinn bears his fangs at him.

“Just imagine if that kind of power was set loose here; we’d lose everything, and everyone. All because you’re too dense to understand the implications of your bond with him and what kind of _thin fucking ice his sanity is skating on!_ ” Quinn is shaking, chest heaving as he struggles to contain his temper. Rain pulls his knees to his chest and wraps his arms and tail around them tightly, hunching over to hide his face. He hears the chair Aether was sitting in creak and the legs squeak against the floor tiles as it’s pushed back, the younger quintessence ghoul crooning to Rain softly as he rubs at his back soothingly.

“I’m… I’ll go check on Blaze,” Quinn announces after a few tense moments of him breathing harshly. He turns on his heel and marches from the room, heels clicking on the polished floors.

“M’sorry,” Rain mumbles into his knees, sniffing back tears that threaten to fall. Aether shushes him gently, hands warm and moving gingerly across his back.

“He doesn’t mean to be so… so angry,” the quintessence ghoul sighs, trying to reassure the troubled water ghoul. “He’s just, very concerned, is all.”

“I didn’t… I don’t… gah,” Rain moans, scrabbling his claws at his scalp. Aether is quick to snatch his hands away by the wrist to keep him from hurting himself, moving to sit on the bed and hug him close.

“Easy, easy. It’s alright, we don’t blame you. Things happen, okay,” he whispers, petting Rain’s hair soothingly. “Give Blaze a few days to come down from the… uhm… shock, alright? Then everything will be back to normal.”

\--

Rain huddles over the ancient text, eyes skittering over the tiny, painstakingly written script. It had taken him hours to find the spell and he cast his eyes about, making sure he was alone in the dark, still library. From what he could tell it wasn’t a hard one, but the wording wasn’t exactly clear on some of the side effects. It wouldn’t matter, he supposed, once everything was said and done. Dragging a pen and piece of paper from the middle of the table over to him he beings to copy it down, his own handwriting a light, spidery scrawl across the page, folding the paper and slipping it into his pocket before carefully replacing the old book back in its place on the shelf.

Now, he just needed someone to cast it.

\--

“Ah, Rain, what a pleasant surprise,” Copia says, motioning the bassist into his office. Rain ducks his head and enters, shutting the door behind him then stands before the cardinal’s desk. Sister Imperator occupies the seat to the right and watches the water ghoul curiously.

“What is it that I can do for you, hm?” The cardinal settles back into his chair, placing his elbows on the tabletop and lacing his fingers together.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Rain mumbles, staring at his feet. His insides writhe and he has to fight down the urge to run and hide, instead just hunching in on himself under the gaze of the cardinal and Sister.

“Well, go on, spit it out,” Sister Imperator says, motioning him to continue with a wave of a hand.

“I… I, ah…” Rain fumbles for the folded piece of paper, hands shaking as he finally extracts it from the inside pocket of his tailed coat. He holds it out and the sister snatches it with a roll of her eyes, opening the paper and squinting at the hard to read writing. She wordlessly hands it over to Copia who looks it over with interest, through his eyes become hard as he finishes reading.

“It is an… annulment spell? What is it you wish annulled,” he asks, Rain nearly flinching at the harsh tone of voice.

“T-the… the mating bond…” he whispers, heart aching as the words nearly trip from his mouth. Both the cardinal and sister give him a sharp look.

“You do not wish to be... mated, to Blaze, any longer,” Copia asks, voice quiet. Rain shifts from foot to foot, tail wrapped tightly around his right leg and he digs his claws into the hem of his coat.

“Answer, ghoul,” Sister Imperator snaps, and this time Rain does flinch. Unconsciously he brings his hands up to tangle his claws in his hair, forgetting he was wearing his mask, the sharp points click and scrape against the hard surface. Sister Imperator continues, though her voice loses the angry edge it is no less steely. “You caused quite the commotion to make that bond. Why do you wish it gone now?”

“It… I…” Rain bites his lip and makes a strangled noise as he tries to put his jumbled thoughts to words. “I just… I… I…”

“It’s alright, take your time,” Copia murmurs gently, trying to calm the panicking ghoul. Rain’s chest heaves as he gasps for air, eventually shaking his head violently then taking a deep breath.

“Blaze… Blaze deserves better. Than me,” he whispers, the ache in his chest ratchetting up into a sharp pain. “I… I just, cause problems… without the summoning bond.”

“Banishing you so that we could summon you back,” Sister Imperator thinks aloud, reading between the lines of Rain’s disjointed speech. “You are correct in one thing, the backlash it would put through your mating bond would be… immense, so to speak. If we annulled the mate bond first, then… hm.”

Sister Imperator locks eyes with the cardinal; they had both proposed a similar suggestion to Blaze, though the old fire ghoul had insisted that Rain did not have the mental fortitude to survive it. She wonders then, since Rain is presenting the same idea himself, if Blaze might have been overreacting.

“You can remove your mask,” Sister tells Rain, her voice becoming softer, gentler. The water ghoul shakily pulls off the mask and balaclava, clutching the items to his chest. The sister notes the nervous flush of his face, the bright gleam of his blue eyes. “Do you understand what you are asking, ghoul? Do you think you could survive not one, but two rituals, the banishment and the summoning?”

Rain bites down on his lower lip and swallows hard; he doesn’t know anything about either ritual, and no church ghoul speaks of their summoning. The few times he’s asked one they would look away, eyes gone distant with remembered pain. He shudders hard enough that his fangs break through the skin of his lip, coppery blood filling his mouth. The taste and the thoughts of the rituals dredges up old, nearly forgotten memories of a dark, stone cavern inscribed with an intricate pentagram, the air thick with the scent of burning pitch. He can’t breathe for the fumes, for the roiling of his gut from the blood poured down his throat, hot and salty, bitter with the taste of anguish and magic.

Rain blinks, finding himself curled and panting on the floor of the study, mouth tasting of vomit and blood. He takes huge, shuddering breaths between sobs, disoriented and unsure how he came to be on the floor, his very soul raw and aching.

“ _See, I’m broken,_ ” he whimpers in ghoulish, the syllables sharp and clipped. “ _Blaze deserves someone whole and… and not this. I don’t deserve him…_ ”

Strong hands grasp at his shoulders and his head swims, unsure where or when he was anymore. Was he still in the circle, this entire lifetime a power-wrought hallucination? He can’t tell the difference between reality and memory, vision a blurred mix of nonsensical images and he squeezes his eyes shut, only to have them follow him in the dark. He begs and howls to be left alone, tearing his claws through his scalp to try and wake up from whatever nightmare was real.

This time when he blinks he’s on an old wooden pier, staring up at the starry night sky.

“Shh,” a quiet voice croons, gentle fingers brushing at the hair tangled around his horns.

He sobs, knowing that this, too, was just a fabrication.

He blinks, and when his eyes open again the ground is burnt and the sky choked with ash. He coughs and chokes on the smoke and fumes, stumbling as he trips over scorched broken stones. A figure materialized from the haze, metallic mask smudged with soot.

“Aether,” Rain croaks, noting the bracelet hanging off the ghoul’s left wrist.

“You were dead, Rain,” the quintessence ghoul sighs, voice ragged and raspy. “You were dead and he burned us all with him.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Rain gasps, stumbling forward and reaching out for Aether. The ground crumbles and gives under his feet, dropping him into darkness.

He blinks, and how he’s staring at a white ceiling again. The room is silent but for the quiet beeping of the heart monitor, slow and even, and the occasional hushed sound of the IV pump clicking on.

His mouth is dry as the desert, tasting sour and stale. His memory is full of holes again, but he’s not sure if they’re new ones or just old ones resurfacing.

“ _Why_ ,” he croaks absently as he stares at the ceiling, “ _So much effort… why bother, for me…_ ”

“Stop that,” a gravely voice rumbles at him from the bedside. When once Blaze’s presence would make his heart leap for joy, now it clenches tight in panic and pain.

“ _I don’t, you shouldn’t—”_ Rain gasps, working his tongue and trying to swallow, but his mouth is just so damn dry. “ _Find… someone else. Someone better…_ ”

He brings his hands up to bite at his claws, finding his fingers already wrapped tight in bandages. Blood has begun to seep through at the ends, what should be the tapered tips of his claws short and blunt as though he’s already bitten and torn them apart.

He doesn’t remember it, and Blaze takes his left hand in his own gently, pressing his lips to the bandaged palm. His heart jerks at the gesture, breath catching in his throat and tears filling his eyes. He doesn’t understand how Blaze could see him like this and still want him. He’s a sad, broken thing, submissive to the point where he can’t even take care of himself. The clan elders knew he would just be a burden and tried their best to fix him once, but their combined power and ritual wasn’t enough to piece him into some semblance of cohesion, leaving him in more pieces than he’d begun and ended the life of the first person he’d ever admit to loving. He keens, head throbbing and vision spinning as despair bubbles up and smothers him down, vision fading as this dream too dissolves around him.

He blinks, each time a new reality, a new vision. Voices shrieking at him from the beyond, tearing at him, grasping for a handhold and trying to worm their way into his head. He tries to fend them off, but they are persistent and grow stronger as he grows weaker till all he can do is curl upon himself and pray they leave.

\--

There’s a certain satisfaction to a job well done, he thinks, as he dusts the dark soil from his hands. He’d been delving for a new spot for a well, pushing his fingers into the soil as he reaches his water lore deep into the ground, searching for an aquifer to tap. It had taken the better part of the day but he’d eventually found a suitable place, chirping brightly for the clan of earth and air ghouls that had followed him about curiously. The ghouls move in on the spot he’d directed him to, working quickly as the wan light was already beginning to fade. A ghoulette offers him a basket of vegetables and mushrooms that he accepts with a trill, noting that there’s a bundle of the strange yellow and orange ones that Lux likes most nestled inside. He knows they’ll be happy to see them and skitters off to the small ragged little hut they called their home. He chatters brightly as he enters, tilting his head as he doesn’t see the aether ghoul anywhere to be found. He sets the basket down and does a cursory search of the small hut before ducking outside, looking around the tiny little garden in the back but finding no sign of his mate. He’s one last place to look, scampering back further along the rocky wall till he comes to the opening of a cave, the entrance covered with strings of beads and woven grass. He hears a quiet snuffling from within and darts inside, finding Lux seated on one of the embroidered cushions they’d made one year, the scrying mirror balanced on a small stone in front of them.

“ _Is everything ok,”_ Rain trills, heart aching at the wet tracks of tears down Lux’s cheeks. He cups their face in his hands, tittering quietly as he wipes away the moisture. “ _Did you see something bad today? Were the voices angry?”_

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” the skinny quintessence ghoul sobs, fresh tears falling from their eyes as they throw thin arms around Rain’s shoulders, pressing their face to his neck. Rain chirps worriedly; he’s seen Lux after a bad scrying, has curled around his mate and comforted them through the night as they’d shiver and sob till the voices died down and let them finally drift into a fitful sleep. Lux looks up at him with blue, purple, and gold eyes shimmering at him wetly. “ _I just… I wanted you to myself, for just a bit,”_ they cry, clinging to Rain as if their life depended on it.

 _“What are you talking about? Of course I’m yours, I’m your mate,_ ” Rain mumbles, petting at Lux’s hair gently.

“ _No, no, it’s not…_ ” they sigh, pulling away and running their fingers down the sides of Rain’s face. “ _It’s just a dream, it’s all a dream, and you’re going to wake up._ ”

“ _Dream? No, I’m not dreaming,_ ” Rain insists, tail twitching in anxiety. “ _I remember the day we met, when we ran away from my clan, when we… consummated our bond, I remember all those things. How could they be dreams?_ ”

“ _I made it all up, I made this all up, I just wanted you for a bit longer, I was selfish…_ ” The tears begin to fall again, Lux’s thin frame wracked with sobs. “ _It wasn’t **fair** , I only had you for a few months, then they… they…_” Lux shudders and claps their hands to their throat, giving a pained moan as red cascades from between their fingers and down their front. Rain gives a started gasps, keening as he rushes forward, trying to command the blood to stop flowing but it ignores his elemental mastery and cascades to the floor.

“ _I’m sorry, so sorry, please forgive me,_ ” Lux gurgles, voice cracking and cutting out, air rattling through the gaping slash bisecting their neck. “ _You have to wake up, they’re waiting for you. **He’s** waiting for you._ ” They give Rain a sad smile, crooning softly as they run gentle claws through Rain’s coarse hair.

“ _You’ll forget it all, don’t worry,_ ” Lux sighs sadly, making Rain jerk away and give them a wild look.

“ _No! I won’t, I can’t… No!_ ” He wails, pressing his face to their chest, nuzzling into the soft warmth of their small breasts, clutching at them tight enough to hear their bones creak. Lux chatters quietly and Rain blinks, everything going shimmery with tears then begins to fade. He gives a yowl as pain spikes through his skull, sobbing mournfully as the world dissolves around him, dropping him into the shrieking void of the aether.

\--

The first thing he becomes aware of is warmth. He purrs quietly, shifting to curl tighter into the heavy arms caged around him, yawning as he blinks his eyes open slowly. The room he’s in is bright, sunshine filtering in through the window making the white walls almost seem to glow. There’s a body pressed flush against his back, bleeding heat into his skin and wrapping him in a feeling of bone-deep contentment.

“Morning,” a quiet voice says. Rain blinks again, raising his eyes to find someone he did not know sitting at the bedside. The ghoul gives him a gentle smile, the sunlight glinting off a pair of wire-framed glasses perched on a pointed nose, magnifying the amethyst eyes behind the lenses. His hair is a mess of brown curls that tangle around his horns, the tips of pointed ears peeking out from the curly tresses.

“Glad to see you’ve finally joined us again,” the ghoul chuckles, reaching forward to lay the back of his hand across Rain’s forehead. The water ghoul gives a quiet, questioning chirp that earns him a grunt from the body plastered to his back.

“Ah, you fell and hit your head, don’t you remember,” the ghoul tells him, and Rain shakes his head gently, finding his memory full of static and fuzz. “Ah, I see. Well you did quite a number on yourself, scared your mate half to death in the process. But you’re young and spry, we’ll have you up and running like nothing had happened in a day or two.”

Lips press against Rain’s neck and suddenly it comes back to him as the deep pulse in his chest speeds up just a smidge. He squirms about till be faces Blaze and buries his face in his mate’s neck, breathing in deeply to inhale his scent. He hums quietly, pushing away the buzzing in his mind that whispers incessantly, _something is wrong, something’s gone, what have they done to us, what did they take?_

\--

The crystal isn’t very large, maybe a couple of inches long and half an inch wide at it’s base, looking innocuous and almost boring against his palm. It’s looks belies the memories hidden within the crystalline depths, plucked free from Rain’s mind and encased safely in structured lattices of quartz.

“And it’ll all stay there, right,” Blaze asks, unable to mask the worry in his voice; the past few days had been hell on him, and the water ghoul both.

“Indeed, unless someone breaks the crystal or tries really hard to force his mind to fill in the gaps,” Cael murmurs, taking the crystal from the fire ghoul and nestling it in the velvet lined case. There are other crystals stowed safely away in the case, Blaze notes, and he wonders if each one holds a memory. The quintessence ghoul hums to himself as he slides the case into a drawer, closing it and locking it with a key then pressing his finger to the gold-wrought glyph inscribed on the front. The glyph flares bright with power for a moment before shimmering away till even he couldn’t see it among the woodgrain.

“Thank you, again. I owe one,” Blaze sighs, slumping back in the chair he was occupying and rubbing at his temples.

“Don’t mention it. I’m just glad to have been around to offer my help. I’ve been gone for too long, I think. Time to stay home, give the other quintessence ghouls some slack. I heard they’ve been kept on their toes lately, huh?” Cael gives Blaze a warm smile, the gentle light of the desk lamp glittering off his glasses and making his eyes seem a darker purple like Aether’s. Blaze snorts a rough laugh before lumbering to his feet.

“You could say that. Anyways, welcome home. I know your brothers have missed you dearly. We should all catch up one night, when shit doesn’t seem to be hitting the fan,” the old fire ghoul rumbles, ruffling the quintessence ghoul’s curly hair affectionately before giving him a wave and heading back to his apartment, wanting to curl up around Rain and not let the water ghoul out of his sight for the next millennia.

\--

Something bothers him, pokes at his mind as he looks curiously at the large round object that he found on his desk. It’s intricately carved and made of a heavy stone, though when he picks it up it’s lighter than he thought it’d be. Something about it seems important, like he should know what it is but he can’t seem to place his finger on it.

“Blaze,” Rain calls, wandering into their nest and flopping himself in his mate’s lap. The fire ghoul snorts and gives him a slightly irritated laugh before sighing and nuzzling at his neck.

“What,” he asks, words muffled against the water ghoul’s skin.

“That bowl on my desk, what is it? Did someone leave it there on accident,” Rain asks, trilling as the fire ghoul nips at his pulse.

“Was a gift from someone I used to know,” Blaze mumbles, his muscles going stiff for a moment before relaxing as he winds his arms around the lanky ghoul in his lap. Rain chirps, about to ask more questions but Blaze shifts and stands, holding Rain clasped to his chest in a show of strength.

“Don’t worry about, yeah,” he says as he walks out of their nest and to the common room. “Let’s watch a movie or something, I’m in the mood to see something blow up.”

Rain shrugs and settles against him as Blaze lowers them to the couch, grabbing the TV remote and turning on the first action movie he can find. The water ghoul purrs contentedly, oblivious to the cautious looks his mate would occasionally toss at him, caring only of the warmth and safety of having his mate wrapped close around him as the earlier unease is forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and kudos are super appreciated~


End file.
